Ditka's 89 to be last in long line of Bears' retired numbers

His will be 14th and McCaskey says 'If there is going to be last 1, there is no more appropriate 1'

May 24, 2013|By Brad Biggs, Chicago Tribune reporter

Mike Ditka during the 1963 season. (Malcolm Emmons-USA TODAY Sports)

When Jim Morrissey came to the Bears in 1985 as an 11th-round pick from Michigan State, he was surprised to receive No. 51, figuring it had been put away long before in honor of Dick Butkus.

Then, a couple of months later Morrissey was sitting in the visitors locker room at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis for the first exhibition. Three hours before the game — rookies were to be dressed and out of the way before veterans arrived — he was in full uniform waiting when Butkus, then doing radio work, walked in.

"Here he comes and my 51, I should say his 51 is staring right at him," Morrissey said. "I thought I can go hide right now or approach him. I went up to Mr. Butkus for the first time and told him I had nothing to do with wearing his number and I hoped he didn't mind.

"He basically had some harsh words for me, but he was funny. He said, 'Just don't get the back dirty.' He really was good about it. Obviously, the number should have been retired years earlier. But it was an honor to wear it."

A year after Morrissey finished his career with the Bears in 1993, No. 51 was retired in a ceremony that included Gale Sayers' No. 40.

The Bears will honor No. 89, Mike Ditka, similarly at halftime of the Cowboys game Dec. 9 at Soldier Field when he becomes the 14th player in franchise history to have his number put away. His will be the last according to Chairman George McCaskey.

"We have more than any other team in the NFL," McCaskey said. "After this, we do not intend to retire any more but we thought if there is going to be a last one, there is no more appropriate one than 89."

That means jersey numbers of Bears greats like Dan Hampton (No. 99), Richard Dent (No. 95), Mike Singletary (No. 50) and, yes, Brian Urlacher (No. 54) at least will be available at the team's discretion. There is no NFL mandate on how many jerseys a team can retire. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said it is "entirely a team decision."

But in 1972 the league adopted a rule restricting each position to a certain range of numbers for television purposes. That has created an issue for clubs with 53-man rosters and eight-man practice squads. There are 27 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who made their primary contribution with the Bears.

Add all that up and you account for 88 of the digits from 1 to 99. Hit a rough season with many players on injured reserve and all the numbers could be exhausted.

Basically, McCaskey is saying the Bears are not going to differentiate between current Hall of Famers without retired numbers and potential future ones. No one can argue that any of them are more deserving that Ditka.

Twelve players wore No. 89 after Ditka, including tight end Terry Stoepel, who appeared in six games in 1967, the year George Halas traded Ditka to the Eagles. (Ditka wore 98 that season because the Eagles already had assigned 89). The primary picture on Stoepel's Facebook page is of his Labrador Raz wearing a No. 89 Stoepel Bears jersey. The 68-year-old is retired in the Dallas suburbs after a career in transportation logistics.

"I was glad to get the No. 89," Stoepel said. "I had 83 all through college, which was so-so. That's what I thought I would get and then when I got 89 that was even better because of obviously who had worn it before me.

He's glad the Bears are putting it away.

"It is excellent," he said. "They should have done it a long time ago, really. There hasn't been a better spokesman for the Bears than Mike Ditka."

Some retired numbers have resurfaced. Bob Avellini wore No. 7, retired for Halas, in the 1970s. Although it wasn't retired at the time, defensive back Steve Trimble wore Sayers' No. 40 as a replacement player for three games in 1987. This year, strong-side linebacker James Anderson received the blessing of Singletary to wear No. 50, one that hasn't been used since he retired in 1992.

Tight end Matt Spaeth is the answer to a trivia question as the final player to wear No. 89. He was driving to training camp in July 2011 when a family member called and asked what number he would have after four seasons of wearing No. 89 for the Steelers, the team he is with again.

"I said, 'I don't know, when I get there whatever is in my locker, I'll wear,' " Spaeth said. "When I got there and went to put on my jersey I was 89. It hadn't hit me Ditka wore 89 until walking out to practice and you have all the fans there asking for autographs and people said, 'You're wearing Ditka's number, that's big shoes to fill.' I thought about it and I said, 'Holy crap! That is big shoes to fill.'

"It was an honor to wear the number of one of the best players in one of the best franchises in history."

Before Spaeth had it, Dustin Lyman wore the number from 2000 to 2004. The former third-round pick got an MBA from the University of Chicago after he finished playing and is now an executive at Vail Resorts in Colorado.

"It was really cool because there were people at the stadiums wearing No. 89 jerseys with Ditka's name on the back," Lyman said. "It was fun to be a part of it a little bit because he was such a big part of the franchise and it has such an illustrious history of great players. They handed it to me when I got there. I didn't pick it."